I aim to explain why majority voting can be assumed to have an epistemic edge over lottery voting. This would provide support for majority voting as the appropriate decision mechanism for deliberative epistemic accounts of democracy. To argue my point, I first recall the usual arguments for majority voting: maximal decisiveness, fairness as anonymity, and minimal decisiveness. I then show how these arguments are over inclusive as they also support lottery voting. I then present a framework to measure accuracy so (...) as to compare the two decision mechanisms. I go over four arguments for lottery voting and three arguments for majority voting that support their respective accuracy. Lottery voting is then shown to have, compared to majority voting, a decreased probability of discrimination. That is, I argue that with lottery voting it is less probable under conditions of normal politics that if the procedure selects X, X is reasonable. I then provide two case scenarios for each voting mechanism that illustrate my point. (shrink)

The present thesis is intended as a contribution toward a Rousseauean theory of democracy. The central problem discussed is how the act of voting must be interpreted in democratic theory. The notion of a theoretical interpretation of voting is discussed in Chapter One. A theory of democracy must include an interpretation of the act of voting if any praise or criticism of democracy is to be possible. The theoretical interpretation is distinct from an empirical account of voting behavior, and also (...) distinct from a moral or prudential imperative. It is left as an open question whether one ought, morally or prudentially, to vote in the way that democratic theory interprets voting, or indeed whether one ought to vote at all. ;Social choice theory typically assumes that votes are expressions of individual preferences--that each individual expresses his or her narrowly self-interested preferences, and a proper aggregation of these will yield a utility maximizing result. In Chapter Two it is argued that, for reasons stemming from analysis of the concept of democratic voting, no understanding of "preference" is acceptable as a theoretical interpretation of voting. Six such understandings are disqualified, and the interpretation of votes as statements on the common interest is argued to succeed where these fail. In Chapter Three Richard Wollheim's puzzle of the minority democrat is discussed in relation to several closely related puzzles which apply to both democracy and utilitarianism. All three puzzles are argued to be dissolved if votes are interpreted as statements on the common interest. The solution to Wollheim's paradox, called the Correction Solution, gives rise to the disturbing possibility that the minority is interpreted as simply deferring to the majority. This danger is discussed in detail in Chapter Four, and again the interpretation of votes as statements on the common interest is argued to be uniquely qualified to avoid it. (shrink)

Consider an election in which each of the n voters casts a vote consisting of a strict preference ranking of the three candidates A, B, and C. In the limit as n→∞, which scoring rule maximizes, under the assumption of Impartial Anonymous Culture (uniform probability distribution over profiles), the probability that the Condorcet candidate wins the election, given that a Condorcet candidate exists? We produce an analytic solution, which is not the Borda Count. Our result agrees with recent numerical (...) results from two independent studies, and contradicts a published result of Van Newenhizen (Economic Theory 2, 69–83. (1992)). (shrink)

The case for secrecy in voting depends on the assumption that voters reliably vote for the political outcomes they want to prevail. No such assumption is valid. Accordingly, voting procedures should be designed to provide maximal incentive for voters to vote responsibly. Secret voting fails this test because citizens are protected from public scrutiny. Under open voting, citizens are publicly answerable for their electoral choices and will be encouraged thereby to vote in a discursively defensible manner. The (...) possibility of bribery, intimidation or blackmail moderates this argument but such dangers will be avoidable in many contemporary societies without recourse to secrecy. (shrink)

It is a platitude among decision theorists that agents should choose their actions so as to maximize expected value. But exactly how to define expected value is contentious. Evidential decision theory (henceforth EDT), causal decision theory (henceforth CDT), and a theory proposed by Ralph Wedgwood that this essay will call benchmark theory (BT) all advise agents to maximize different types of expected value. Consequently, their verdicts sometimes conflict. In certain famous cases of conflict—medical Newcomb problems—CDT and BT seem to get (...) things right, while EDT seems to get things wrong. In other cases of conflict, including some recent examples suggested by Andy Egan, EDT and BT seem to get things right, while CDT seems to get things wrong. In still other cases, EDT and CDT seems to get things right, while BT gets things wrong. It's no accident, this essay claims, that all three decision theories are subject to counterexamples. Decision rules can be reinterpreted as voting rules, where the voters are the agent's possible future selves. The problematic examples have the structure of voting paradoxes. Just as voting paradoxes show that no voting rule can do everything we want, decision-theoretic paradoxes show that no decision rule can do everything we want. Luckily, the so-called “tickle defense” establishes that EDT, CDT, and BT will do everything we want in a wide range of situations. Most decision situations, this essay argues, are analogues of voting situations in which the voters unanimously adopt the same set of preferences. In such situations, all plausible voting rules and all plausible decision rules agree. (shrink)

Some philosophers have recently argued that decision-makers ought to take normative uncertainty into account in their decisionmaking. These philosophers argue that, just as it is plausible that we should maximize expected value under empirical uncertainty, it is plausible that we should maximize expected choice-worthiness under normative uncertainty. However, such an approach faces two serious problems: how to deal with merely ordinal theories, which do not give sense to the idea of magnitudes of choice-worthiness; and how, even when theories do give (...) sense to magnitudes of choice-worthiness, to compare magnitudes of choice-worthiness across different theories. Some critics have suggested that these problems are fatal to the project of developing a normative account of decision-making under normative uncertainty. The primary purpose of this article is to show that this is not the case. To this end, I develop an analogy between decision-making under normative uncertainty and the problem of social choice, and then argue that the Borda Rule provides the best way of making decisions in the face of merely ordinal theories and intertheoretic incomparability. (shrink)

Political scientists generally consider that the incentive for legislators to switch parties lies in their desire to be re-elected. While some scholars attribute defection to the legislators’ popularity and strong connections with their constituents which enable them to be re-elected without relying on party labels, others assert that legislators switch if they perceive that staying put might threaten their chances of re-election. In this paper, we find that the two assumptions, to some extent, contradict each other. More surprisingly, the two (...) contradictory hypotheses cohabit under the single non-transferable vote system. From an analysis of the switching in the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan, the empirical evidence shows that because of fierce intraparty competition in the multimember districts, not only barely elected but also top-ranked legislators switched party affiliation in order to avoid the loss in votes or even seats to their copartisans and to maximize their chances of re-election. (shrink)

In their article, Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky present an alternative to market theories of voting behavior. Contrary to market theories which view the voter as acting to maximize the expected self-interest, the alternative view sees voting as fundamentally an act of self-expression: “Voting, like speech, is an expressive activity providing an outlet for one's moral sentiments. We suggest that it is the expressive return to a vote that frequently determines the behavior of individuals in large-number electorates.”.

In this study, we are concerned with how agents can best amalgamate their private information about a binary state of Nature. The agents are heterogeneous in their “ability”, the quality of their private information. The agents cannot directly communicate their private information but instead can only vote between the two states. We first describe possible methods of sequential majority voting, and then we analyze a particular one: the first n-1\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$n-1$$\end{document} jurors (...) vote simultaneously and, in the case of a tie, the remaining juror has the casting vote. We prove that when n=3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$n=3$$\end{document}, the probability of a correct verdict is maximized when the agent of median ability has the casting vote. (shrink)

The mean majority deficit in a two-tier voting system is a function of the partition of the population. We derive a new square-root rule: For odd-numbered population sizes and equipopulous units the mean majority deficit is maximal when the member size of the units in the partition is close to the square root of the population size. Furthermore, within the partitions into roughly equipopulous units, partitions with small even numbers of units or small even-sized units yield high mean majority deficits. (...) We discuss the implications for the winner-takes-all system in the US Electoral College. (shrink)

This monograph evaluates public policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic through a public choice lens. The book compares two prominent, albeit mutually exclusive, theories in social sciences—public interest theory and public choice theory—and explores how their predictions perform within the framework of the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapters present different pandemic policies alongside empirical data in order to draw conclusions about their efficacy, and, in turn, draw conclusions about the veracity of each theory. By the end of the volume, the reader (...) will be able to draw their own conclusions about whether the pandemic policy responses served the public interest, as public interest theory suggests, or the personal interests of the politicians who implemented them, as public choice theory holds. (shrink)

With size, voting discipline, and technical resources superior to those of most Brazilian parties, in the last two decades, the support of the Agrarian Caucus has become crucial for the realization of presidents’ legislative agenda. In a country where 87 percent of the population is urban, how have representatives of the agrarian elites become key players in bargaining on nonagrarian issues? This article argues that Brazilian agrarian elites have been so successful because they have devised an electoral strategy that maximizes (...) their leverage in a fragmented party system with ideologically weak right-wing parties. Empirically, I show how agrarian elites in Brazil finance legislative campaigns, mobilize voters, and subsidize the legislative work of politicians from their ranks, independently of their partisan affiliation. Theoretically, I discuss the advantages of a candidate-centered electoral strategy: self-representation and multipartisanship. While self-representation has granted agrarian elites direct access to agenda-setting positions within Congress, having members in many parties has increased the number of agenda-setting positions they can control and guaranteed their presence in the legislative coalition of right- and left-wing presidents alike. (shrink)

The concept of clientelism has lost descriptive power. It has become indistinguishable from neighboring concepts and is applied across analytical levels. Using Gerring’s (Polity 31:357–393, 1999) characterization of a “good” concept, I establish the core attributes of clientelism, which, in addition to being an interest-maximizing exchange, involves longevity, diffuseness, face-to-face contact, and inequality. Using secondary sources and fieldwork data, I differentiate clientelism from concepts such as vote-buying and corruption and determine its analytical position at the microsociological level. I (...) argue that labeling sociopolitical systems as clientelistic is awkward since, operating at a higher analytical level, they have characteristics beyond microsociological clientelism and they affect the political nature of the clientelism they contain. I conclude that differentiating clientelism by confining it to the microsociological level will aid theory-building. (shrink)

Nondeterministic models of collective choice posit convergence among the outcomes of simple-majority decisions. The object of this research is to estimate the extent of convergence of majority choice under different procedural conditions. The paper reports results from a computer simulation of simple-majority decision making by committees. Simulation experiments generate distributions of majority-adopted proposals in two-dimensional space. These represent nondeterministic outcomes of majority choice by committees. The proposal distributions provide data for a quantitative evaluation of committee-choice procedures in respect to outcome (...) convergence. Experiments were run under general conditions, and under conditions that restrict committee choice to several game-theoretic solution sets. The findings are that, compared to distributions of voter ideal points, majority-adopted proposals confined to the solution sets demonstrate different degrees of convergence. Second, endogenous agenda formation is a more important obstacle to convergence than the inherent instability of simple-majority rule. Third, if members maximize preferences in respect to agenda formation, a committee choice that approximates the central tendency of the distribution of voter preferences is unlikely. The conclusion is that the most effective way to increase the convergence of majority choice is to restrict the role of individual preferences in agenda formation: identification of proposals to be voted up or down by a committee. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Is Hume A "Classical Utilitarian"? The central notion of utilitarianism is that a right kind of action or a virtuous quality of character is one which in the long run promotes the welfare of society or, as it is frequently stated, which promotes the greatest happiness of the greatest number. But when we try to use the utilitarian concept as a guide for evaluating various possible ultimate distributions of (...) goods among the members of a society, we find there are alternative ways of making this goal more precise. I intend to review briefly five different ways in which the utilitarian goal can be stated more precisely. Then I will consider which one of these more precise formulations most accurately reflects what Hume 2 seems to have had in mind when he spoke of "public utility" or "the good of mankind" or "the true interests of mankind" (ICPM, p. 13) or "public interest and utility "(ICPM, p. 34). II The most effective way of illustrating the vagueness of such phrases as "the welfare of society" or "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" is to consider which of various specific but simple distributions of goods would be preferred by a utilitarian. This technique also is helpful in displaying the differences among the various ways of stating the utilitarian goal in more precise terms. Let us suppose that there are units of "goodness" or "welfare" all 2. of which are equal to each other. These units of "goodness" or "welfare" can be taken from one individual and given to another. Furthermore, the number of such units is not fixed, nor is the number of individuals among whom the units of value will be distributed. The distribution of goods among individuals is to be considered in a completely abstract way so that no individuals are to be more deserving then any others. In fact, from a utilitarian point of view, various actions and qualities of character are to be evaluated in terms of whether in the long run they hinder or promote the ideal distribution of goods being considered. To illustrate this technique, let us examine two conceivable distributions of goods. Individual Scheme I Scheme II A 5 10 B 5 3 C 5 3 In Scheme I there are fifteen units of goodness divided evenly among the three individuals A, B, and C. In Scheme II there are sixteen units of goodness distributed in such a way that A has twice as many units as he had in Scheme I while B and C have only three units each. Given that the utilitarian wants to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number, which Scheme would he choose to promote, 4 Scheme I or Scheme II? One variety of utilitarianism, the first of five to be distinguished, opts for Scheme II on grounds that the total number of units of welfare is greater (16 to only 15 for Scheme I). The emphasis here is on the first half of the utilitarian formula of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" ; the aim is to increase the total amount of happiness. This view is usually called "classical utilitarianism " on grounds that it supposedly was the view championed by the classical utilitarians (Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, 5 Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham, J. S. Mill, and Sidgwick). A second variety of utilitarianism would opt for Scheme 3. I in the comparison given above on grounds that two individuals (B and C) would be better off with Scheme I while only one individual (A) would be better off with Scheme II. The emphasis here is on the second half of the utilitarian formula ; the aim is to increase the number of individuals who are better off. This view can be called "self-interest-vote utilitarianism" on grounds that the preferred scheme is the one which gets the most votes when each person votes in terms of his own self-interest. (Note that this interpretation of utilitarianism can be used only when the Schemes being compared have the same number of persons sharing the goods. ) A third variety of utilitarianism is that which declares the goal to be maximizing the average units of welfare available per person. As long... (shrink)

In ‘Normative Uncertainty as a Voting Problem’, William MacAskill argues that positive credence in ordinal-structured or intertheoretically incomparable normative theories does not prevent an agent from rationally accounting for her normative uncertainties in practical deliberation. Rather, such an agent can aggregate the theories in which she has positive credence by methods borrowed from voting theory—specifically, MacAskill suggests, by a kind of weighted Borda count. The appeal to voting methods opens up a promising new avenue for theories of rational choice under (...) normative uncertainty. The Borda rule, however, is open to at least two serious objections. First, it seems implicitly to ‘cardinalize’ ordinal theories, and so does not fully face up to the problem of merely ordinal theories. Second, the Borda rule faces a problem of option individuation. MacAskill attempts to solve this problem by invoking a measure on the set of practical options. But it is unclear that there is any natural way of defining such a measure that will not make the output of the Borda rule implausibly sensitive to irrelevant empirical features of decision-situations. After developing these objections, I suggest an alternative: the McKelvey uncovered set, a Condorcet method that selects all and only the maximal options under a strong pairwise defeat relation. This decision rule has several advantages over Borda and mostly avoids the force of MacAskill’s objection to Condorcet methods in general. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere that in past history, freedom of speech, whether granted to few or many, was granted as bestowing some important benefit. John Stuart Mill, for example, in On Liberty, saw it as enabling us to learn from each other through discussion. By the test of benefit, I here argue that social media that are funded through trade in our personal data with advertisers, including propagandists, cannot claim to be supporting free speech. We lose our freedoms, if the (...) personal data we entrust to online social media are used to target us with information, or disinformation, tailored as persuasive to different personalities, in order to maximize revenue from advertisers or propagandists. Among the serious consequences described, particularly dangerous because of its effect on democracy, is the use of such targeted advertisements to swing voting campaigns. Control is needed both of the social media and of any political parties that pay social media for differential targeting of voters based on personality. Using UK government documents, I recommend legislation for reform and enforcement. (shrink)

According to rational choice theory casework is a rational form of political participation for both voter and Member of Parliament. It increases the voter's chance to a redress of grievance and it is an important means for MPs to maximize their votes, which parliamentary activities fail to contribute to. Though rational for individual actors, casework is far from optimal for society as a whole. Disregarding isolated cases, casework does not constitute an important source of inspiration for legislative and oversight activities. (...) A written survey among 101 Flemish MPs tends to show that a collective solution for grievances in great demand is not pursued, as casework seems electorally and personally so much more rewarding. A cure for casework cannot befound, unless it ends this structural attractiveness of constituency service. Disregarding its rationality in isolated cases, casework, because it does not result in collective measures, seems to be a meager substitute for political participation. (shrink)

This paper examines the shareholder primacy norm as a widely acknowledged impediment to corporate social responsibility and explores the role of business schools in promoting the SPN but also potentially as an avenue for change by addressing misconceptions about shareholder primacy and the purpose of business. We start by explaining the SPN and then review its status under US and UK laws and show that it is not a likely legal requirement, at least under the guise of shareholder value maximization. (...) This is in contrast to the common assertion that managers are legally constrained from addressing CSR issues if doing so is inconsistent with the economic interests of shareholders. Nonetheless, while the SPN might be muted as a legal norm, we show that it is certainly evident as a social norm among managers and in business schools—reflective, in part, of the sole voting rights of shareholders on corporate boards and of the dominance of shareholder theory—and justifiably so in the view of many managers and business academics. We argue that this view is misguided, not least when associated with claims of a purported legally enforceable requirement to maximize shareholder value. We propose two ways by which the influence of the SPN among managers might be attenuated: extending fiduciary duties of executives to non-shareholder stakeholders and changes in business school teaching such that it covers a plurality of conceptions of the purpose of the corporation. (shrink)

The choice of a social decision rule for a federal assembly affects the welfare distribution within the federation. But which decision rules can be recommended on welfarist grounds? In this paper, we focus on two welfarist desiderata, viz. (i) maximizing the expected utility of the whole federation and (ii) equalizing the expected utilities of people from dif- ferent states in the federation. We consider the European Union as an example, set up a probabilistic model of decision making and explore (...) how different decision rules fare with regard to the desiderata. We start with a default model, where the interests, and therefore the votes of the different states are not correlated. This default model is then abandoned in favor of models with correlations. We perform computer simulations and find that decision rules with a low acceptance threshold do generally better in terms of desideratum (i), whereas the rules presented in the Accession Treaty and in the (still unratified) Constitution of the Euro- pean Union tend to do better in terms of desideratum (ii). The ranking obtained regarding desideratum (i) is fairly stable across different corre- lation patterns. (shrink)

Cognitive biases that affect decision making may affect the decisions of citizens that influence public policy. To the extent that decisions follow principles other than maximizing utility for all, it is less likely that utility will be maximized, and the citizens will ultimately suffer the results. Here I outline some basic arguments concerning decisions by citizens, using voting as an example. I describe two types of values that may lead to sub-optimal consequences when these values influence political behavior: moralistic (...) values (which people are willing to impose on others regardless of the consequences) and protected values (PVs, values protected from trade-offs). I present evidence against the idea that voting is expressive, i.e., that voters aim to express their moral views rather than to have an effect on outcomes. I show experimentally that PVs are often moralistic. Finally, I present some data that citizens’ think of their duty in a parochial way, neglecting out-groups. I conclude that moral judgments are important determinants of citizen behavior, that these judgments are subject to biases and based on moralistic values, and that, therefore, outcomes are probably less good than they could be. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 121.3 (2000) 385-407 [Access article in PDF] Plautus' Stichus and the Political Crisis of 200 B.C. William M. Owens What to make of Stichus? Scholars have written appreciatively of its separate parts: the sisters who are loyal wives to their absent husbands, the sympathetic depiction of the parasite Gelasimus, and even the wild celebration of the slaves that ends the play. 1 However, when considering (...) Stichus as an artistic whole, scholarship has tended to blanket the play with anathema. Thus Norwood: "What of Stichus, which falls into three mere lumps?" 2 Duckworth is more discursive but no less disparaging: "The Stichus is hardly a drama; there is no real plot and complication and denouement of the usual sort are lacking. The scenes fall into three groups: these might be called 'The Abandoned Wives' (1-401), 'The Homecoming, or the Disappointed Parasite' (402-640), and 'The Carousal of the Slaves' (641-775)." 3Previous readings have focused on the relation of Stichus to Plautus' model, Menander's first Adelphoe, attributing the deficiencies in the Roman play to Plautine departures from the model, either through free invention of scenes and characters or through contaminatio, the introduction of scenes from Greek plays other than Adelphoe. 4 However, even those who believe that Plautus was more or less faithfully following the contents of Menander's Adelphoe consider Stichus to be a poorly constructed work. 5Given this general critical disparagement and the almost complete [End Page 385] loss of its model, source criticism of Stichus has come to resemble a kind of philological shadowboxing against an invisible and superior opponent. The present reading seeks to understand the difficulties of this play in terms of its Roman audience of 200 B.C. The broad outlines of this approach were developed by Segal in Roman Laughter (1987), who argued that Plautine humor was accommodated to Roman concerns and preoccupations. Wagenvoort (1931) anticipated Segal's approach with specific reference to Stichus in his suggestion that the play reflects the jubilant mood of the people who had defeated Hannibal in the previous year and recently celebrated Scipio's triumph. Such a people, he argued, were in no mood for a play constructed by the book, but wanted one that was accommodated to their mood: Plautus Stichum [composuit]... cum etiam atque etiam aliae aliunde copiae domum reverterentur, isdem fortasse diebus, quibus summo cum gaudio Romani Scipionem aspicerent triumphantem. Tali tempore non id profecto cives a poeta suo poposcerunt, ut comoediam sibi praeberet rigidis normis adstrictam quodque ad compositionem attinet omnibus numeris absolutam, sed ut spectaculum sibi offerret ad commune gaudium quam poterat maxime accommodatum. 6There is evidence that Stichus was matched to the mood of its audience; the Ludi Plebeii for which the play was produced in 200 B.C. were repeated three times, and the popularity of Stichus may have been one of the reasons for the multiple instaurationes. 7 However, the mood of the people of Rome in 200 B.C., a politically turbulent year, was more complex than summum et commune gaudium. Fresh upon the victory [End Page 386] over Hannibal, the Senate was preparing to fight a war in Greece against Philip V of Macedon. Since the autumn of 201 senatorial ambassadors had been sent to various Greek states to canvass support for Roman intervention; during this same period ambassadors from a number of Greek states had been in Rome to complain about Philip's aggressions. 8 In March 200 the consul P. Sulpicius Galba, having received Macedonia as his province, proposed a declaration of war against Philip to the Centuriate Assembly. But a tribune, Q. Baebius, spoke against the bill, and war was rejected by nearly every voting division (ab omnibus ferme centuriis antiquata est, Liv. 31.6.3). Livy reports that the people were exhausted from the length of the war they had just completed and that Baebius was able to exploit their discontent.In response, the Senate advised Galba to try again. The war was approved after a vigorous speech from the consul. Livy does... (shrink)

Designing a mechanism that provides a direct incentive for an individual to report her utility function over several alternatives is a difficult task. A framework for such mechanism design is the following: an individual (a decision maker) is faced with an optimization problem (e.g., maximization of expected utility), and a mechanism designer observes the decision maker’s action. The mechanism does reveal the individual’s utility truthfully if the mechanism designer, having observed the decision maker’s action, infers the decision maker’s utilities over (...) several alternatives. This paper studies an example of such a mechanism and discusses its application to the problem of optimal social choice. Under certain simplifying assumptions about individuals’ utility functions and about how voters choose their voting strategies, this mechanism selects the alternative that maximizes Harsanyi’s social utility function and is Pareto-efficient. (shrink)

This article brings forward the argument that the practical implementation of a corporate governance code cannot be realized by a compliance program alone. Its relevance in everyday business is determined by the moral values of the company culture. In this context, governance is defined as a company’s resources and capabilities, including the moral resources, to take on responsibility for all its stakeholders. A critical discussion of the agency theory, transaction cost theory, and organization theory shows that such an approach is (...) possible only when a company is not perceived as a maximizing machine for shareholders’ interests but as an economic form of cooperation of internal and external resources and stakeholders. An empiric study on 22 European corporate governance codes shows that the predominant majority of European codes orientate themselves to stakeholders and the company. The discussion of the empirical data reveals six basic principles that determine all European corporate governance codes: shareholder rights, transparency, voting rights, regulation of remuneration, design of organizational structures, and corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Under the independence and competence assumptions of Condorcet’s classical jury model, the probability of a correct majority decision converges to certainty as the jury size increases, a seemingly unrealistic result. Using Bayesian networks, we argue that the model’s independence assumption requires that the state of the world (guilty or not guilty) is the latest common cause of all jurors’ votes. But often – arguably in all courtroom cases and in many expert panels – the latest such common cause is a (...) shared ‘body of evidence’ observed by the jurors. In the corresponding Bayesian network, the votes are direct descendants not of the state of the world, but of the body of evidence, which in turn is a direct descendant of the state of the world. We develop a model of jury decisions based on this Bayesian network. Our model permits the possibility of misleading evidence, even for a maximally competent observer, which cannot easily be accommodated in the classical model. We prove that (i) the probability of a correct majority verdict converges to the probability that the body of evidence is not misleading, a value typically below 1; (ii) depending on the required threshold of ‘no reasonable doubt’, it may be impossible, even in an arbitrarily large jury, to establish guilt of a defendant ‘beyond any reasonable doubt’. (shrink)

An act utilitarian tries to maximize expected utility. This is the sum of possible benefits, minus possible costs, with each benefit or cost multiplied by the chance that his act will produce it. Two recent essays claim that, in this calculation, the act utilitarian should ignore very tiny chances. If this is so, he will have no reason to vote, support revolutionary movements, or contribute to countless other public..

This article employs the methodology of public choice, or constitutional political economy, to the question of how citizenship should be defined in a constitution. All members of a community or an assembly representative of all members writes a constitution. Each participant in the constitution-drafting process is uncertain of his or her future identity under the constitution and thus chooses a constitution that maximizes the expected utility of all future citizens. The article describes the optimal conditions within this framework for: granting (...) citizenship to those born and raised in the country; granting citizenship to those immigrating into the country; and withdrawing citizenship from those who emigrate from the country. The article also discusses why it might be desirable to require that people pass certain tests and take a loyalty oath to the constitution before being awarded the privilege of voting. (shrink)

This paper presents two possibility results and one impossibility result about a situation with three voters under a pairwise majoritarian aggregation function voting on a countably infi nite number of candidates. First, from individual orders with no maximal or minimal element, it is possible to generate an aggregate order with a maximal or minimal element. Second, from dense individual orders, it is possible to generate a discrete aggregate order. Finally, I show that, from discrete orders with a particular property, namely (...) the finite-distance property, it is not possible to generate a dense aggregate order. (shrink)

The paper first summarizes the author's decision-theoretical model of moral behavior, in order to compare the moral implications of the act-utilitarian and of the rule-utilitarian versions of utilitarian theory. This model is then applied to three voting examples. It is argued that the moral behavior of act-utilitarian individuals will have the nature of a noncooperative game, played in the extensive mode, and involving action-by-action maximization of social utility by each player. In contrast, the moral behavior of rule-utilitarian individuals will have (...) the nature of a cooperative game, played in the normal mode, and involving a firm commitment by each player to a specific moral strategy (viz. to the strategy selected by the rule-utilitarian choice criterion) — even if some individual actions prescribed by this strategy, when considered in isolation, should fail to maximize social utility. The most important advantage that rule utilitarianism as an ethical theory has over act utilitarianism lies in its ability to give full recognition to the moral and social importance of individual rights and personal obligations. It is easy to verify that action-by-action maximization of social utility, as required by act utilitarianism, would destroy these rights and obligations. In contrast, rule utilitarianism can fully recognize the moral validity of these rights and obligations precisely because of its commitment to an overall moral strategy, independent of action-by-action social-utility maximization. The paper ends with a discussion of the voter's paradox problem. The conventional theory of rational behavior cannot avoid the paradoxical conclusion that, in any large electorate, voting is always an irrational activity because one's own individual vote is extremely unlikely to make any difference to the outcome of any election. But it can be shown that, by using the principles of rule-utilitarian theory, this paradox can easily be resolved and that, in actual fact, voting, even in large electorates, may be perfectly rational action. More generally, the example of rule utilitarianism shows what an important role the concept of a rational commitment can play in the analysis of rational behavior. (shrink)

Can I will that my maxim becomes a universal law? . . .It would be easy to show how common human reason, with this compass, knows well how to distinguish . . . what is consistent or inconsistent with duty. (Kant, Foundations, 403–4)How exactly is this compass to work? Cases bring out connected difficulties to do, (1), with whether ''social contexts'' are to be in or out of descriptions of actions maxims would have agents do – for example, ''disarming alone'' (...) and ''voting when enough others would even if one did not'', or ''disarming'' and ''voting'' simply; and, (2), with a seldom noticed ambiguity of ''everyone''s acting in accordance with a maxim'' and ''a maxim''s becoming universal law''. The paper argues dilemmatically for the inadequacy of Kant''s test for maxims consistent with duty whatever policy for social contexts and manner of maxims becoming universal laws it is said to invoke. (shrink)

The choice of a social decision rule for a federal assembly affects the welfare distribution within the federation. But which decision rules can be recommended on welfarist grounds? In this paper, we focus on two welfarist desiderata, viz. (i) maximizing the expected utility of the whole federation and (ii) equalizing the expected utilities of people from different states in the federation. We consider the European Union as an example, set up a probabilistic model of decision making and explore how (...) different decision rules fare with regard to the desiderata. We start with a default model, where the interests, and therefore the votes of the different states are not correlated. This default model is then abandoned in favor of models with correlations. We perform computer simulations and find that decision rules with a low acceptance threshold do generally better in terms of desideratum (i), whereas the rules presented in the Accession Treaty and in the (still unratified) Constitution of the European Union tend to do better in terms of desideratum (ii). The ranking obtained regarding desideratum (i) is fairly stable across different correlation patterns. (shrink)

Firms have been relying on corporate political activity to achieve access and to affect public policy change for decades. Most research on CPA and public policy outcomes has implicitly assumed that access afforded by CPA results in an either- or policy outcome such as votes or election outcomes. Based on recent research on how CPA can be a strategic signal to government agencies, however, it is possible that CPA may in fact, have a linear association with public policy outcomes as (...) opposed to merely a dichotomous one, and we explore this relationship in the unique public policy context of government contract awards. We specifically analyze how higher levels of CPA impact the financial value of government contracts awarded to firms. Utilizing the S&P 1500 sample for 16 years we find that CPA has a one to one association with the value of contract awards, indicating that CPA and public policy outcomes can be linked in ways that motivate firms to continuously invest in CPA, to maximize their political rents. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this finding in light of extant research on CPA and its direct impact on public policy outcomes. (shrink)

This is a survey paper giving a self-contained account of Shelah's theory of the pcf function pcf={cf:D is an ultrafilter on a}, where a is a set of regular cardinals such that a

Logic and Philosophy of Logic

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The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to aid legal decision making has become prominent. This paper investigates the use of AI in a critical issue in employment law, the determination of a worker’s status—employee vs. independent contractor—in two common law countries (the U.S. and Canada). This legal question has been a contentious labor issue insofar as independent contractors are not eligible for the same benefits as employees. It has become an important societal issue due to the ubiquity of the gig (...) economy and the recent disruptions in employment arrangements. To address this problem, we collected, annotated, and structured the data for all Canadian and Californian court cases related to this legal question between 2002 and 2021, resulting in 538 Canadian cases and 217 U.S. cases. In contrast to legal literature focusing on complex and correlated characteristics of the employment relationship, our statistical analyses of the data show very strong correlations between the worker’s status and a small subset of quantifiable characteristics of the employment relationship. In fact, despite the variety of situations in the case law, we show that simple, off-the-shelf AI models classify the cases with an out-of-sample accuracy of more than 90%. Interestingly, the analysis of misclassified cases reveals consistent misclassification patterns by most algorithms. Legal analyses of these cases led us to identify how equity is ensured by judges in ambiguous situations. Finally, our findings have practical implications for access to legal advice and justice. We deployed our AI model via the open-access platform, https://MyOpenCourt.org/, to help users answer employment legal questions. This platform has already assisted many Canadian users, and we hope it will help democratize access to legal advice to large crowds. (shrink)

This is the introduction to the symposium on Maxime Lepoutre, Democratic Speech in Divided Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). The symposium contains articles by Paul Billingham, Rachel Fraser, and Michael Hannon, and a response by the author.

During the Zimbabwean crisis, millions crossed through the apartheid-era border fence, searching for ways to make ends meet. Maxim Bolt explores the lives of Zimbabwean migrant labourers, of settled black farm workers and their dependants, and of white farmers and managers, as they intersect on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Focusing on one farm, this book investigates the role of a hub of wage labour in a place of crisis. A close ethnographic study, it addresses the complex, shifting (...) labour and life conditions in northern South Africa's agricultural borderlands. Underlying these challenges are the Zimbabwean political and economic crisis of the 2000s and the intensified pressures on commercial agriculture in South Africa following market liberalization and post-apartheid land reform. But, amidst uncertainty, farmers and farm workers strive for stability. The farms on South Africa's margins are centers of gravity, islands of residential labour in a sea of informal arrangements. (shrink)

Maxime Vachon | : L’objectif de cet article est de montrer l’unité du chapitre 14 du Peri Hermeneias, chapitre dans lequel Aristote retourne au fondement de l’échange dialectique, à savoir la doxa. Je montre ainsi que ce chapitre expose progressivement les trois conditions sémantiques que des points de vue doivent respecter pour être contraires : le sujet doit être le même, l’objet doit aussi être le même, mais le mode de prédication doit être contradictoire. | : The aim of this (...) paper is to show the unity of chapter 14 of the Peri Hermeneias, in which chapter Aristotle goes back to the basis of dialectical exchange, that is doxa. Thus I show that this chapter presents in successive order the three semantical conditions that points of view must respect in order to be contrary : the subject has to be the same, the object has also to be the same, but the mode of predication must be contradictory. (shrink)

When is choice affected by subliminal messages? This question has fascinated scientists and lay people alike, but it is only recently that reliable empirical data began to emerge. In the current paper we bridge the literature on implicit motivation and that on subliminal persuasion. We suggest that motivation in general, and implicit motivation more specifically, plays an important role in subliminal persuasion: It sensitizes us to subliminal cues. To examine this hypothesis we developed a new paradigm that allows powerful tests (...) of subliminal influences as well as stringent assessments of subliminality. The results of two experiments suggest that implicit motivation can enhance the effects of subliminal priming on choice. (shrink)

The problems of diversity and pluralism have always been serious challenges to the stability of European societies. In the course of its history Europe elaborated various important ways of accommodation of differences, including toleration, respect and recognition. This article is devoted to discussion of the relations among them both in analytical and historical perspectives. I argue that toleration has always been based on a certain kind of respect and distinguish three main paradigms of the relations among these concepts. Then I (...) proceed to a discussion of the particular forms these paradigms took in European intellectual history and to an analysis of their applicability to the most important problems of contemporary society. I argue that pluralism and the complexity of contemporary society require pluralism in the modes of justifying toleration. (shrink)

Ignorant speech, which spreads falsehoods about people and policies, is pervasive in public discourse. A popular response to this problem recommends countering ignorant speech with more speech, rather than legal regulations. However, Mary Kate McGowan has influentially argued that this ‘counterspeech’ response is flawed, as it overlooks the asymmetric pliability of conversational norms: the phenomenon whereby some conversational norms are easier to enact than subsequently to reverse. After demonstrating that this conversational ‘stickiness’ is an even broader concern for counterspeech than (...) McGowan suggests—it applies not just to oppressive or hateful speech, but also to ordinary policy-related misinformation—I argue that a more sophisticated account of counterspeech can nevertheless overcome it. First, the stickiness objection overlooks the distinction between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ counterspeech. Instead of directly negating a distorted proposition, positive counterspeech affirms a correct proposition that is inconsistent with the falsehoods at hand. This, I contend, allows it to counter ignorant speech without triggering the properties that render it sticky. Second, the stickiness objection presupposes an unrefined conception of counterspeech’s temporality. Counterspeech should be understood as a diachronic process, which not only follows, but also pre-empts, ignorant utterances. Drawing on speech-act theories of silencing, I argue that pre-emptive counterspeech can condition the conversational context so as to prevent subsequent ignorant utterances from enacting sticky conversational norms. Thus, this theoretically-refined conception of counterspeech helps appreciate how verbal responses might overcome the stickiness of conversational norms; and, in doing so, it reveals that this stickiness need not provide reasons to prefer legal remedies to counterspeech. (shrink)

Human activity is permeated by norms of all sorts: moral norms provide the 'code' for what we ought to do, norms of logic regulate how we ought to reason, scientific norms set the standards for what counts as knowledge, legal norms determine what is lawfully permitted and what isn't, aesthetic norms establish canons of beauty and shape artistic trends and practices, and socio-cultural norms provide criteria for what counts as tolerable, just, praiseworthy, or unacceptable in a community or milieu. Given (...) the diversity of norm-governed phenomena prevailing in our everyday experience, it is not surprising that the question of normativity has recently generated important debates in philosophy. However, the more specific question concerning the nature and function of 'norms in perceptual experience' has received comparatively little attention. This volume brings together scholars from philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, and phenomenology to explore this question. (shrink)